Acquia Announced as Technical Lead on Virgin Sport Online Festival Platform

LONDON — 24 January 2017, — Acquia, a leading provider of cloud-based digital experience solutions, today announces its appointment as the technical lead on delivering Virgin Sport’s new festival platform. Virgin Sport, which is part of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, launched on 17th January and will run sporting festivals first in the U.K. and the U.S., before scaling globally. The festivals will bring active communities together through their love of keeping fit to participate in events including running races, yoga, fitness programmes, kids’ activities, and more.

Acquia’s role as technical lead for the new Virgin Sport brand has seen it orchestrate the technical implementation of the new online platform for budding participants to register their interest in one of Virgin’s Sport’s events. The new platform, which features Drupal at its core, seamlessly integrates multiple touch points and platforms, including SugarCRM and Virgin Sport’s event registration platform Attendly. Acquia’s innovative digital experience management platform is able to process large amounts of data quickly between the multiple systems to ensure large volumes of people can register and purchase tickets with ease. Working closely with agency partner AKQA, which delivered the user experience and design aspects of the project, Acquia now provides Virgin Sport with the tools to manage the entire customer journey, from initial contact, through to secure transactions.

Acquia CEO Tom Erickson said: “Acquia shares Virgin Sport’s passion for an active lifestyle and keeping fit. The Virgin vision for an ambitious digital experience aligned well with our sweet spot, and we are excited to help Virgin Sport achieve digital fitness in a short space of time.”

Virgin Sport CEO Mary Wittenberg said: “In our business, teamwork is everything and Acquia paced us from the start to the finish line. Our digital ecosystem is one of the most important parts of our customer experience, and Acquia drove us to be innovative, focused and nimble. We are grateful for their expertise, passion and drive in bringing sport to people all over the world.”

Acquia and AKQA will now work with Virgin Sport on an ongoing basis to further enhance the platform to improve the overall customer journey. The launch of the platform is the first of two releases that Acquia will be delivering for Virgin Sport. The second release of the platform will integrate tools to enable Virgin Sport to manage customers during a festival, as well as collecting and presenting real time race result data for spectators and participants.

Virgin Sport will kick off its festivals of sport with the London, Hackney Festival on 30 April, followed by the London, Westminster Festival on 9th July, Oxford festival on 8th October and the San Francisco festival on 14th –15th October.

About Acquia

Acquia is the leading provider of cloud-based, digital experience management solutions. Forward-thinking organisations rely on Acquia to transform the way they can engage with customers — across every device and channel, everywhere. Acquia provides the foundation and the freedom for organisations to embrace new digital business models and create new revenue streams. With Acquia, organisations around the world including Cisco, BBC, Stanford University, and the Australian government accelerate time to market and drive customer engagement through cross-channel, contextually relevant, and high-impact digital experiences.

About Virgin Sport

Virgin Sport is an active lifestyle company within Sir Richard Branson’s global Virgin Group, and is on a mission to move the world through sport. Virgin Sport creates festivals of sport to combine running and fitness challenges with community celebrations. Virgin Sport plans to grow to new neighbourhoods and active experiences in 2018 and beyond.

About Virgin Group

Virgin is a leading international investment group and one of the world’s most recognized and respected brands. Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow successful businesses in sectors including mobile telephony, travel & transportation, financial services, leisure & entertainment and health & wellness.